The Buck Stops Here (30 page)

Except for a little bit of good-natured ribbing from Phillip, they let the subject drop. I was glad. I really wasn’t comfortable discussing our relationship with Tom’s ex-fiancée or his sister.

The girls fell asleep in the car on the way back to my hotel, however, and once they did, Beth seemed eager to talk about it. She told me she was feeling kind of stupid, because she should’ve guessed it sooner.

“I know my brother,” she said softly. “He never tells anybody anything, and yet you seem to know so much about his life and past. I should’ve figured out that you were more than just an employee.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you up front,” I said. “I was kind of leaving that to him.”

“Are you kidding? If you left it up to him, we might never have found out.”

“Maybe not.”

“Come on. Tom is one of those people you can carry on a full conversation with, and when you’re all done you realize you’ve gathered almost no information about him whatsoever. He’s like a master at conversing without really sharing any details.”

Man, had she ever hit the nail on the head! I couldn’t count the hours Tom and I had spent on the phone before I ever even knew his last name.

“I guess he got that from our father,” she added.

“Your father?”

“The king of evasion.”

“How so?” I asked, feeling stupid myself now. Truth be told, the only thing I knew about Tom’s father was that he had divorced their mother back in the ’70s and that he had been only a sporadic presence from then until his death a few years ago.

“Oh, Daddy used to pop in and out of our lives whenever he felt like it. You never knew where he had been or what he had been doing, but no matter how much you asked him about it or talked to him, he would never give you any details. When he passed away a few years ago, Tom and I got his personal effects. You can bet we devoured that stuff like starving children at a banquet.”

I felt a surge of sadness, picturing it.

“So, if I may ask,” I said, “what had your father been doing all that time? Where had he been?”

She shrugged, turning onto a wide, main street that seemed to lead toward the river.

“Nowhere special. Over the years, Tom and I had built up so many theories—that Daddy had a second family, that he was a secret agent, that he was a fugitive from justice—but in the end it turned out that he had an apartment in Houston, a job selling valves to oil tankers, and an aging girlfriend named Lola. So much for the big mystery.”

I looked out at the dark storefronts we were passing. There were small trees planted in flower beds all along the street, each with odd, sparkly decorations among the branches.

“I’m sorry he wasn’t there for you,” I said. “That must’ve hurt.”

“It hurt worse when we found out there was no real reason for it. At the time he died, we hadn’t heard from him in about ten years. There’s no excuse for that. We’re just lucky our mom is such an amazing person. She was our rock. Still is.”

“I look forward to spending more time with her.”

Beth glanced at me and then back at the road.

“She doesn’t know either?” she asked. She put on her blinker to turn onto a side street, and as she did, I pointed to the trees along the side of the road.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but what’s that in the trees? That sparkly stuff?”

She dipped her head to look up and then smiled.

“Mardi Gras beads. This is a main parade route. Beads get stuck in the trees on Canal Street during Mardi Gras and stay there all year.”

I also had to smile, just imagining it.

“To answer your question, no. I don’t think she knows,” I said. “How do you think she’ll take it?”

Beth smiled.

“She likes you,” she said. “A lot. She told me so yesterday, after lunch.”

“That’s good. I really liked her too.”

And I liked Beth, though I had to wonder how she would react once she found out the connection that existed between me and her, that her ex-husband accidentally killed my husband—and went to prison for it for 16 years! Now that I had come to know her a little better, I was able to separate one from the other. I could only hope that if or when she learned the truth, she wouldn’t be angry with me for keeping something of such magnitude to myself.

“Mom’s been wishing for a long time that Tom would find a wife and settle down,” she said. “I think she’ll be thrilled.”

“Slow down, Beth,” I laughed. “That’s getting a little ahead of things.”

“But is it serious between you two? I know that’s none of my business, but we’re all dying to know.”

I could feel my face flush, and I was glad the car was dark. We were back in the French Quarter now, and I looked out at the unique buildings, the clusters of tourists, the lights. I could hear music playing in the distance and smell the spices of the local cooking, and for a moment I wished Tom would simply come into town and sweep me off my feet. We could forget the past. We could forget the things that had come between us.

We could make a life here, together. A fresh start for us both.

Beth slowed the car, and I realized we had reached my hotel. She pulled to a stop under the awning.

“Let’s just say we have discussed the future,” I told her evenly, reaching for the door handle. “What will become of us, though, I’m just not sure.”

Thirty-Five

The next morning dawned hot and sticky. I was disappointed, as this was the day I was headed into the swamp with Armand. I made conversation with the garage attendant while waiting for my car, and he said that the heat and humidity were the norm here, that the last few days—cool and dry—had been the exception.

Still, I was eager to get some time out in the fresh air and was nearly desperate to hold a paddle in my hands and feel the strong pull of the water against my muscles. I didn’t care if the temperature reached a hundred by noontime, I was going.

Following Armand’s directions, I made my way across New Orleans and then south toward the city of Houma. Once the interstate extension dropped me onto Highway 90, I had about 45 minutes to go. After a while I pulled out Armand’s hand-drawn map to find the exit that would lead me into the swamp area he called home. Judging from a few billboards I passed, this was also the way to several plantation homes, including Grande Terre, the location for the upcoming Family HEARTS ball.

It was a fascinating drive. The farther I went, the more exotic the scenery grew. By the time I finally turned at the “dead oak by the deserted strawberry stand,” I felt as though I were in a foreign land. The flora and fauna were distinctly swampy. A faded sign announcing “Gator Eggs for Sale” had a big red arrow pointing the way I was going.

The road was made of dirt somewhat “paved” with white shells. Though it was rutted, my trusty SUV handled the bumps well. I had an odd feeling of isolation, and to be safe I called Beth just to tell her where I was. I left a casual-sounding message on her voice mail, saying I wouldn’t be coming into Family HEARTS today because I was getting a swamp tour from Armand. I said I hoped that would give her and Veronica more time for pulling the records I needed for my charity investigation, and I would see them in the morning.

I ended the call as I rounded the final curve, which brought me to a grouping of homes out in the middle of nowhere. I slowed to a stop and looked around. I was on a finger of land, and there were homes at about five points around that finger. On Armand’s map, he had drawn an “X” on the one to the far left, so I pulled in there. As I came to a stop, the front door opened, and Armand gave me a wave.

I had just opened my car door when a pack of dogs came rushing up from down the street, barking and yelping toward me. I jerked my legs back into the car and slammed the door.

Armand came down the stairs and stepped toward my car, and suddenly I realized where the dogs were headed. They weren’t coming after me, they just wanted to greet him. They all jumped up on him, and he fought them off, laughing and finally producing what looked like beef jerky strips from his pocket. He handed the strips out to the dogs, and then they stopped jumping and slowly loped over toward the house.

“I’m so sorry, Callie,” he said, opening my car door for me. “I didn’t mean for my dogs to scare you like that. I should’ve thought to tie them up.”

“I’m okay,” I said, feeling rather embarrassed.

“Anyway, after that terrible beginning, thanks for coming. Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

“No, your directions were great,” I said as I pulled my tote bag from the car. “I hope I brought everything I’ll need.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. I’ve got a lunch packed for us.”

“Good.”

“This is my home,” he said, gesturing toward a modest wood house up on stilts and nestled among the trees. There was a pair of sawhorses in the front yard with an oddly shaped boat propped across the top, upside down with several tools littering the top. It looked like a canoe, but the sides were low and the bottom was completely flat.

He pointed to the other stilt-top homes and identified them as well. “Next door, that’s Ton Ton—my aunt—and on the end there is the Breaux family. By them is my Big Nanan—my godmother—and Big Parain—my godfather. Their daughter and her husband live next door to them, and they got three kids, them.”

Except for the sawhorses, Armand’s yard was neat and clean. The other homes here, by contrast, looked like junkyards. Underneath each house was all sorts of detritus among the weeds, most of it water related: crab traps, buoys, floaters, shrimp trawls, broken-down boats. From what I could see, it looked as though behind each house was a dock, with at least two boats tied up. In one yard sat a faded political sign from an election long past. In another, a rope hung down from a massive tree with a dusty black tire hanging at the end.

“I know this might be different than you’re used to,” Armand said. “But this is home to us.”

He led me around the side of his house to his wide back yard and dock. From there, I had a perfect view of the bayou, as striking as any picture postcard.

“That’s my view,” he said proudly, “every single ding-dong day of the year.”

“I live on water too,” I told him, smiling. “I can’t ever get enough of it.”

“A girl after my own heart!” he cried, his blue eyes sparkling in the sun. For a moment, I could see what the women at Family HEARTS had been talking about—this guy was definitely a Bayou Babe.

“So what did I see driving in here?” I asked. “Do you really sell alligator eggs?”

“Yeah,
cher
. We got a breeding pit. You wanna see it?”

“I’m not sure.”

Armand threw his head back and laughed.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “It’s safe.”

He held onto my hand as he led me toward a path in the brush, but then once the path widened and we could walk side by side, he didn’t let go. I pulled my hand loose myself, thinking I had better set him straight right away.

“Listen, Armand, no offense, but I hope you didn’t take this day as a date or anything.”

He simply smiled.

“Oh,
cher
, I am never presumptuous. I jus’ take every good thing how it comes to me, like the gift of a good sunrise or a bait line filled with catfish.”

“Good.”

The moment passed, and I was glad I had brought it up. We rounded a curve and came upon a huge wire fence. It was about ten feet tall, with barbed wire along on the top, surrounding a pond that was maybe a quarter of an acre in size. Along the sides of the pond, three gigantic alligators were sunning themselves, and two more were lurking in the shallows.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered. Armand just laughed.

“You wanna go in and feed ’em?” he asked, reaching for the lock on the metal gate.

“No!” I said quickly, stepping back.

“I’m just kidding,
cher
,” he said. “You do it over here.”

He led me to a set of wooden stairs. Next to them was an old ice chest, and when he opened it up, it stank of spoiled meat. Without hesitating, he reached inside and pulled out a package of chicken from the grocery store, one that was obviously well beyond its sale date.

“Gators like their food rotted,” he explained as he opened the package and mounted the steps. Once he was at the top, he walked forward on the wide platform and began tossing the chicken into the shallows of the pond.

Surprisingly, the alligators were slow to respond, but one by one they approached the meat and begin to snap it up.

“We can buy past-date chicken from the grocery store for ’bout five cent a pound,” he said. “That’s cheaper than raising chickens and killing them ourselves.”

Once he had distributed all of the meat, he came down the steps and washed his hands with soap at a nearby faucet. As we walked back up the path toward his home, he explained the whole breeding process, how he harvested the alligator eggs and sold them to a local wholesaler.

“Gator meat is really big in some countries,” he said. “I think it’s a delicacy in China.”

“Aren’t you afraid to have that pit so close to your home, though? Don’t you worry that the alligators will break loose sometime and go there and eat you?”